A US federal appeals court has killed the infamous 30% “Apple Tax” on in-app purchases for all apps on the Apple platform.

A US federal appeals court has killed the infamous 30% “Apple Tax” on in-app purchases for all apps on the Apple platform. The court ruled that Apple can no longer block developers from linking to external payment systems.

“The Court found that Apple’s 30 percent commission allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive,” the ruling said.

For over a decade, Apple’s App Store policy required developers to use its proprietary payment system for in-app purchases, allowing the tech giant to take a 30% commission on everything from digital subscriptions to in-game items.

Here’s one reason Apple fought tooth and nail to disallow web payments for apps:

Because Apple’s IAP is bad in many ways, and *so many* apps will move to web-based payments now not mainly because of the 30% Apple fee, but because of how bad IAP is.

Let me give you examples:

This “Apple Tax” was a major source of revenue for the company, but it also represented a significant barrier for developers—especially those in the crypto and NFT space—who were unable to offer direct purchases of digital assets without either inflating prices or stripping out core features to comply with Apple’s rules.

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For crypto apps, the impact is immediate and transformative.

Platforms like Coinbase Wallet, Magic Eden, and a host of Web3 games can now enable direct sales of NFTs, tokens, and other digital assets through external websites—without platform-imposed restrictions or fees. Previously, many crypto apps had to strip out essential features or avoid the App